When, at midnight on Friday August 15th, I had finally parked my little
car--looking pathetically urban and out of place on a turnout along
Mono County's Little Walker River Road--I felt I had accomplished the
first challenge in any Sierra climbing trek: where to unobtrusively pass
the night (i.e., sleep on the ground until the USFS counter staff shows up at
work in the morning) before I lace up my boots in the dawn and get
cracking. But as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss: there are whole worlds
that reveal themselves to us at the most unexpected moments. On this
occasion it was a reminder of a youthful, formative time when I did pay
attention to when deer season takes place. This small fact of the
regulatory calendar explained why the traffic along this small Forest Service
road suddenly spiked roughly an hour before sunrise, why two
outlandishly camouflaged dudes in a shiny Ford Expedition had pulled up next to
my outspread ground-cloth after I'd managed to grab four hours of shuteye,
and why Joe's friend made what to me sounded like a surreally obvious
comment: opening day of hunting season in the Toiyabe National Forest.
But in parking next to me, I'm certain these guys must've intuited my
impeccable wildlife mojo getting cranked up, for this turned out to be
the inauspicious debut to a weekend filled with magical animal
encounters as well as memorable summits attained.

Thankful for the simplicity of my own alpine couture, I wished Joe and
his pal the best of luck and, knowing there was no chance I'd get any
more sleep, cooked up breakfast for myself before driving to the Green
Lakes trailhead to start my first trip to the Sawtooth Ridge region. The
only notable occurrence of that morning's entry hike over Virginia Pass
was an encounter with an overweight man who exhibited some frightening
signs of physical collapse: glassy eyes, bloody mouth, anxious
inquiries about the distance to the trailhead. After I answered his questions
(his diffident teen companion looking bored all the while), I plodded
on, my focus on my own goals clouded by retrospective doubt as to
whether I should have offered more assistance to this man--who at least
had had the courage to come here in the first place--and if he'd ever
leave the Barcalounger again after he was safely home.

Once I'd reached a beautiful camp near the outlet of Return Lake--a
large, gorgeous bit of water nestled beneath what would soon be the
familiar east escarpment of Virginia Peak--I reveled in the knowledge that I
had two full days ahead of me to do nothing but explore the higher
reaches of all these monoliths towering above me. Oh, would that flatland
life were like this! On the first day, although I had ambitious summit
goals none of them were outside the tight little cirque ringing the
western inlet streams of my scenic lake. Hiking under blue skies and a
daytime moon, I headed toward Stanton Pass and the "easy class 3" route to
the top of Virginia described in my 1st edition of Secor. Just upstream
of Return Lake there is an example of a recessional moraine which is
so perfectly-shaped as to deserve an illustration in a first-year
geology textbook. Stanton Pass is easy to get to, and once there the most
likely class 3 route to Virginia's summit appeared to follow an ascending
ledge system crossing the buttressed east face from about 11,300' to
11600'. Despite the constant airy sensation induced by the sight of the
tiny blue dot of my tent far beneath me, this reasonably safe traverse
continued to a third small buttress where I found an unnervingly
teetering chockstone the size of an SUV that I had to surmount to see what
ensued. What ensued was a tiny foxtail pine clinging to the cliff, and
from there the only possible class 3 route going straight upward. Had
there not been so much loose metamorphic rock littering every bit of terra
firm, perhaps this could really have been a way to go. But since the
friable choss comprising this otherwise majestic spire made any potential
footholds almost liquid, one might re-classify this as "death-wish
class 3". This impression was immediately enhanced by the
always-disconcerting experience of dislodging small stones, that fall to
dislodge larger ones, which then induce distant, minor rockslides that--in
their remoteness, dust, and invisibility--produce those thoughts about how
valuable life truly is, and how I wish certain parts of my anatomy didn't
contract so in these settings. For me at least, this was inarguably a
sign that this face should not be soloed, a decision made easier by the
presence of other, more easily-climbed peaks along this small massif:
Stanton, Grey Butte and Peak 11,529' above Spiller Lake. When I saw the
opposite side of Virginia Peak on the next day, my best guess is that
the purported 3rd class route from Stanton Pass actually requires a
crossing of that pass into Spiller Canyon and a traverse almost all the way
north to Twin Peaks Pass, where the NW slope appears to be easy. The
other three mountains ahead of me that day were easy, nondescript climbs
topped out with fabulous panoramas of the high Tuolumne country of
northeast Yosemite. Grey Butte is surely the most conically-shaped peak
south of the Cascades, and worth the time. None of these three mountains
have a summit register.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, on my second full day of exploring I
returned to my old habit of choosing peaks with long approach hikes, so I
headed one canyon West towards Matterhorn. I had an avid desire to climb
the mountain that Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder had been up, as
recounted in Kerouac's hilarious Dharma Bums. Heading toward Twin Peaks Pass at
dawn, a sudden "thump" startled me a split second before I saw a huge
mule deer buck bounding into a meadowy sidehill, weaving between
boulders resembling monstrous versions of after dinner mints--the ones that
usually come wrapped in green foil and are found near the diner cash
register. This majestic stag was immediately followed by no fewer than ten
other big bucks, who followed the alpha male loping through this
flowery alpine expanse. As this small herd trotted away across the green
valley, I was thankful I wasn't too busy parking my SUV or loading ammo to
just stand and watch them stop and turn their heads and velveted horns to
check on me. Good thing, I thought, that these eleven potential
targets were inside the park boundary and thus out of range of the
sportsman's abattoir.

Twin Peaks Pass is everything I'd heard it to be--a glorified
sandpile--yet it still manages to be gorgeous, and as I reached the top to see
the breathtaking view of Matterhorn and its canyon, a basso-profundo
"kerthunk" prompted me to turn around just in time to see a huge piece of
the glacier calve into Lake 11,020'. Large concentric waves marched
across the water with a uniformity made even more beautiful by how they
mirrored the arc of the half moon above and the circularity of the small
basin in which I stood. The scenery of Upper Spiller Creek may even
surpass Virginia Canyon's, with its integument of floral color, smattering
of stunted conifers, and Whorl Mtn.'s impressive east face. It
resembled an alpine version of the "poppies" scene in The Wizard of Oz, and I
did entertain the temptation to forget Matterhorn's SE slope and take a
nap. In his book R.J. Secor again lets his opinions get the better of
him in describing this route, which in his view is dominated by the sandy
slog up the lower slopes. But the upper 200 meters offer the enjoyably
protean task of picking a 3rd class line to get to the small summit
plateau, which I made even more interesting by getting slightly off-route,
and then by forgetting to note the way down after signing the mass of
loose papers that passes as a summit register.

Going back to Return Lake camp, the extraordinarily beautiful
blue-green boulders that artistically scatter the meadows beneath Twin Peaks'
west slope distracted this rock-hound author long enough to obviate any
desire for an attempt on Virginia's easy side. Not bagging Virginia
gives me an excellent excuse to come back, as if I needed to think of one.
I also ate lunch with the companionship of a family of grouse. Three
young chicks curiously approached within a couple of feet of me while the
stressed-out hen stood well back, issuing warning calls. Typical mother.

I woke early on my last day to make a dawn attempt on Twin Peaks, the
Sawtooth Ridge's highpoint, via the south gully. This route can be
described simply: interminable scree followed by endless talus and completed
by a summit which is preceded by at least three false ones. Nonetheless
I was on top by 9:15 am and lingered only briefly to savor my 50th Sierra summit
before a speedy descent and a quick march back over Virginia Pass to the car. A delicious au naturel dunking in one of Green Creek's beaver ponds added to the
sense of total fulfillment after this trip through pristine, deer-filled landscapes.